Kirsty Buchanan's politics column.

POLITICIANS sometimes misunderstand a question and sometimes they choose to misunderstand a question.

Either way, there has been plenty of misunderstanding this week about the potential impact of Foundation Hospitals on Welsh patients.

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain and Health Minister John Hutton have both tried to reassure Labour MPs this week the new breed English hospitals will be allowed to treat Welsh patients.

National Assembly Health Minister Jane Hutt will be in Westminster on Monday to offer the same reassurances.

Thanks for the soothing words but that is not the point of the concerns which have repeatedly been expressed by MPs representing tens of thousands of Welsh patients treated over the border every year.

The Health and Social Care Bill, which returns to the Commons on Tuesday, does not compel Foundation Trusts to treat Welsh patients and Labour MPs and the British Medical Association in Wales suggest that is a significant potential problem.

Are they simply getting in a flap about nothing, as Ms Hutt, Mr Hain and Mr Hutton seem to suggest? They say no.

Without a legal duty to treat Welsh patients they could be squeezed out by Foundation Trusts struggling to meet tough waiting list targets and competing for limited resources on the basis of their performance.

The Labour-led administration in Cardiff has set its face against creating Foundation Hospitals in Wales.

A natural consequence of Cardiff Central MP Jon Owen Jones's amendment to offer legal protection to Welsh patients treated in Foundation Hospitals would be to empower the Assembly to introduce Foundation Hospitals, even if it chose not to.

Not only has the Government maintained there is no need to shut off this evident loophole but the Labour-led administration in Cardiff has consistently defended the Bill's wording.

It is tempting to suggest all this misunderstanding is because the Labour-led administration in Cardiff does not want the constant opposition pressure to introduce Foundation Hospitals if they prove a success and the NHS in Wales continues to suffer.

"That is speculation," said an Assembly spokeswoman.

Indeed it is.

CEREDIGION MP Simon Thomas is in danger of taking the right to free speech a bit too far.

While other MPs tabled an amendment to shut up Parliament Square's very own anti- Iraq war protester Brian Haw, Mr Thomas has quite rightly signed a Commons' motion in support of the noisy pest.

I reluctantly agree with Mr Thomas that it would be an act of gross hypocrisy for MPs to try to silence Mr Haw, even though his incessant chanting outside the House of Commons pushes free speech to the point of anti-social behaviour.

But Mr Thomas has tabled an amendment to the motion which fills me with horror.

It says: "The City of Westminster and the Parliamentary authorities work together to ensure that Parliament Square is enhanced as a location where the people can meet their elected representatives and celebrate democracy."

All very easy for Mr Thomas to say. His office is not in the direct firing line of Mr Haw's 24/7 megaphone chanting of "45 minutes Mr Blair".

Nor does he have to endure the daily chants from the equally irritating female contingent: "Women of Iraq we are with you." Oh, how I wish they were.

Parliament maybe the heart of democracy but it is also a working building. And I'm the one working in the building within earshot of the anti-Iraq war tendency. If Mr Thomas wants to turn Parliament Square into some low-rent Greenham Common - let him spend a week actually having to listen to these persistent persecutors and see how much he wants to "celebrate democracy" then.